Four Dead in Ohio
by The Profane Angel
Summary: Jack and Claire catch a case that causes a crisis of conscience for Jack. Fairly straightforward L&O story. Blessed be the four dead in Ohio - May 1970. Usual disclaimers apply.


A/N: Their names were Sandy Scheuer, Allison Krause, Bill Schroeder, Jeff Miller

Claire watched through the observation mirror, standing next to Anita Van Buren. She listened intently to the man Lennie and Rey questioned; he appeared to be a little older than Jack, haggard, his tangled gray hair hanging to his shoulders, his beard equally long and out of control. He stared at the table, speaking in a monotone, his dirty hands clasped together on the table.

"They wouldn't leave me alone," he said, "So I stabbed the mouthy one, the other one moved most ricky-tick out the way." He leaned back, staring at the mirror, Claire felt he looked at her, and she edged away. "Just because my clothes are worn and I haven't bathed in awhile don't mean I don't deserve respect." He pulled the front of his filthy field jacket together, as he was cold, though the interview room was well-heated. He chewed on his chapped bottom lip, then looked at Lennie; Claire could see, even from her distance, his eyes trying to focus. "Look, man, you remember, right?"

"I remember," Lennie said. "I'm going to get you some coffee, see if our Lieutenant left any doughnuts in the break room." He stood, then patted the man on the shoulder. When Rey gave him an 'are you nuts?' look, he shook his head and walked out of the interview room. When he'd closed the door, he leaned against it and drew a deep breath. "Fresh air," he said.

"Doughnuts?" Anita said, arching her eyebrows, with a distinct undertone of growling German Shepherd.

Lennie smiled. "Sorry. He's hungry and he needs a bath."

Claire stared at him with open curiosity. "He killed a teenaged boy and you want to feed him, bathe him, and put him to bed?"

"Yes, Counselor, I do." Lennie walked toward the break room, then turned. "I was there. I remember." He left Claire and Anita, off on his quest for something hot for the suspect.

"What the hell?" Claire said, looking at Anita for guidance.

"Vietnam, Claire. It still comes back to haunt us on a regular basis."

"Oh. OK. So this guy's a Vietnam vet? Guess his lawyer will go for PTSD then."

Anita sighed. "Some of them never came home, Claire. I know it doesn't excuse what he did, offers no justification, but he's clearly one of those who never found their way home."

Lennie came back with a cup of coffee and a couple of doughnuts on a paper towel. Anita opened the door for him, then stood beside Claire. The man inhaled the doughnuts, but sipped his coffee. Lennie waited until he'd brushed the crumbs into his beard and then he returned to his questions.

"You're sure you don't want a lawyer, Al?" He glanced at Rey, who wore a pinched expression, and thought what he'd do now, fart on top of just stinking? When Al shook his head, Lennie said, "They were just verbally harassing you? That's all?"

"It's enough. I see this kid's face." He jerked his thumb at Rey. "I know I stink to kingdom come, and buddy," he turned to face Rey, "if I could get a shower and clean clothes, I would. My mama didn't raise me to be dirty."

"It's OK, Al." Lennie fiddled with a pen, leaning back, away, in his chair. "So these boys were hassling you and you had enough and you stabbed the easiest one to grab?"

"I did, and I'd do it again. Little assholes, in their prep school blazers, shiny Weejuns, dancing around me singing White Rabbit."

"I'm surprised they knew the words," Lennie said.

"Why didn't you just walk away?" Rey asked.

Al looked at Rey, as if searching his soul before deciding if Rey's soul was worthy of an answer. "Are you a man?" he finally asked, then continued on, lest Rey think the question was anything other than rhetorical. "A man takes what he can, but he doesn't forfeit his dignity because he's down on his luck. Or his right to respect." He jerked the lapels of his jacket. "I got drafted, I didn't have a student deferment, and I did what I was supposed to do, I went, and I killed a lot of men. After awhile killing isn't such a big deal. And then, when I got back, I used the GI bill to go to school." He sighed. "I wish now I'd graduated," he said wistfully.

"So why didn't you?" Rey asked.

Al looked at Rey with all the patience of a teacher dealing with a severely challenged child. "I got through Vietnam without a scratch, and when I went to college, went after the American dream, then I got shot. By soldiers. Sort of took the wind out me and my belief in the American dream." He crossed his arms. "You know, I've changed my mind. I do want a lawyer, you have to give me one, right?"

"Right," Lennie said. He sighed. "We'll call Legal Aid. You sit tight, Al."

Al stared at the mirror, closing in on himself, and Rey and Lennie left him there, staring at his reflection. In the corridor, Rey snorted as he stood with his boss and the ADA. "God he stinks. You see the same defense I do, Counselor? He's not as dumb as he acts. You buy a soldier shot him while he was in college?"

"Absolutely," Lennie said, and Anita underscored him with a sharp "No question about it." Rey looked confused. "C'mon, kid, I'll educate you while we deal with Legal Aid."

Claire gathered herself, taking her overcoat off a hook and picking up her briefcase. "I'll let Jack know what we've got. Looks like a slam dunk."

"Lieutenant?" The PPA leaned around the corner, one hand on the wall. "The kid's parents are here."

Claire put her hand on Anita's arm. "Good luck with that, I think it's got to be the worst part of the job."

"You have no idea, Claire, telling some parent all their hopes and dreams died. It's a nightmare."

Claire parted company with Anita, stopping by Lennie's desk. "I'll see you at arraignment?"

"Yeah, I'm going to follow this one all the way through the process."

She cocked her head. "How'd he get to you, Lennie?"

His smile was humorless. "Memory lane. The name on his field jacket is Shipley. My L-T in Nam was named Shipley."

"But that's not his last name?"

"No." He shook his head. "It's just a jacket, Claire, but the name sparked memories I'd rather forget. I could have made the same kinds of choices he did, ya know? I could be him, a there but for the grace of God kind of thing." He picked up a form and gave it to her. "Incident report. I'll get a fuller one to you later."

She took the form and slipped it into the soft-sided briefcase she carried. "OK, thanks, Lennie." She looked at Rey, coming back from the locker room, still wiping his hands on paper toweling. "See you, Rey."

He crushed the brown toweling into a ball and tossed it at the trash can. "You bet, Claire." He flashed his earnest smile, and she felt a twinge of affection for him, he was a couple of years older than she was, still full of idealism and faith, she wondered how long it would take for him to turn into Lennie. She left the squad room and took the stairs, pausing by the desk to pull her coat on. A blast of cold air came in behind two uniforms, along with a whiff of moisture. She looked outside as she adjusted her coat over her shoulders. Snow. Oh well, she thought, winter in New York.

Jack wasn't in his office when she got back to Hogan Place. She went to her closet of an office, hung her coat, and pulled the incident report from her briefcase, it would aid her in composing her own report on the observed interview. She read Lennie's cramped block printing: Stephen Hankins Watkins, sixteen, stabbed to death by Albert Francis McGwire, fifty-seven, in an alley behind a bodega, where he'd set up housekeeping, alongside some of his contemporaries, in a box. Witnesses: Michael Thomas Hunter, sixteen, companion of Stephen Watkins, and a couple of homeless men, who couldn't seem to describe what they saw very well, other than the teenaged boys tormenting Albert McGwire. Weapon: an Army surplus bayonet. The kid bled out before the ambulance got there, looking at his killer, repeating "Why'd you do it, man, we were only teasing you."

Claire typed her report - the man, advised of his rights, declined counsel and spoke freely with the detectives, admitted he killed the kid, and after talking with them for a little while, decided he wanted an attorney and all questioning ceased. She repeated the little background Al Watkins had offered, described him as lucid, and then she typed "slam dunk" at the bottom before clicking the print icon. She took both documents to Jack's office.

He walked in as she put the documents on his desk, his eyes on a blueback, reading as he walked - take those risks, Jack, she thought, smiling to herself. He looked up and his eyes lit when he saw her. "There you are," he said. "How'd the interview go? Briscoe get his ducks in a row?"

"Oh yeah." She got out of his way, sitting on the edge of the desk as he sank into his chair, tossing the blueback toward his inbox. "No reason to go to trial, he admitted he killed the kid and that was that."

"OK, offer him whatever seems appropriate." He folded his hands over his belt buckle, leaning back, smiling. "Where would you like to go for dinner?"

She shrugged. "I'm easy, you pick."

She caught the glint in his eye. "Easy you aren't - or weren't - my dear. However, I'll take your offer - Romalotti's?"

"Sure."

He glanced over his shoulder at the windows. Big flakes dropped from the sky. "One of the secretaries said a winter storm warning was issued, this is supposed to be a big storm."

"Oh, not to be considered essential." She smiled slyly. "We could spend a whole day just lying in bed, not a blueback in sight."

He tapped the fingers of his right hand on the back of his left hand. "I hate it when you do that. I'm going to be, uh, anticipating all afternoon."

"We can always get take-out on our way home."

"We'll see." He leaned forward, his palms landing on his desk. "I have work, I know I have work here somewhere."

She got off his desk. "I'll catch up with you later, I'll be running over to arraign Mr. Stinky soon."

He looked up. "Excuse me?"

"That's why Rey called him, the homeless guy who stabbed the teenager, Mr. Stinky. I didn't get near him, I can't vouch for Rey's veracity."

Jack shook his head. "Go, find something to do before my inappropriate thoughts take over and we both get canned."

She went back to her office, collected her copies of the incident reports, and put them in a file. Her phone rang, she had to be at the courthouse in twenty minutes. She shoved the file in her briefcase, shrugged into her coat, and left to arraign Mr. Stinky.

She and the Legal Aid attorney acknowledged one another, then took their places at their respective podiums. To her surprise, Mr. Stinky plead not guilty, his attorney indicating he'd mount a defense. She recovered hastily and asked for remand, which was granted without a dispute from the defense. The defendant was taken away, and she left the courthouse, this would surprise Jack - she got back to her office and made a couple of discreet calls, checking out the Legal Aid lawyer and groaning at the answers.

His name was David Fraser, and he had a distinguished pedigree as the son and grandson of civil activists and attorneys, his father was well known for his defense work for sixties radicals. Fraser the younger had a surprising record for getting his clients off, it was said he cherry-picked his cases and that was tolerated because of his heritage and his skills. He made Legal Aid look good. Jack would not be happy. Well, she decided, nothing says I have to say anything until the issue actually arises, maybe Fraser was blowing smoke about mounting a defense. And if he did, she thought, it would be the tired, over-worked PTSD, they could knock that one out of the park. She thought twenty to life would prove a good offer.

She and Jack were in his office, getting ready to leave early, the weather was going to hell in a hurry, and he decided her suggestion of take-out was the way to go. He made suggestions of his own - a warm bed, an old movie on the tube, and take-out on trays in the nice warm bed. She saw a bike messenger in the hallway, don't come here, she thought, I want to get out of here before hell freezes over.

Jack had his coat on, and they walked to the elevators. As the doors closed on the tenth floor, she caught a glimpse of the messenger stepping into Jack's office, and she grinned, such small victories, she thought, can make a girl so happy. The elevator was crowded with their colleagues, all wanting to get home before it became too difficult, conversation buzzed around her head, she lost the words to the feel of Jack's knee pressing into the back of hers. She glanced over her shoulder at his angelic expression. She reached back as if to rub her back and let her hand land where his expression went from angelic to shocked in a split second. She smiled sweetly, the innocent child, and turned back to stare at the front of the elevator.

Outside, in the falling snow, on slick sidewalks, he put his arm around her shoulders and said, "You better keep that promise."

She grinned. "We'll see, altar boy."

She kept it, in spades, Jack thought, actually exhausted by her acrobatics and her need, he felt sucked completely dry. Claire was lying with her head on his shoulder, and he lightly caressed her shoulder. She sat up, propping herself on her elbow, reaching out to draw circles on his stomach.

"Have mercy," he pleaded. "I think you've ruined me for life."

"What, does Mr. Winkie hurt?" Her hand brushed his penis, and he closed one eye, staring at her while trying not to laugh.

"Mr. Winkie is dead," he said, and took her hand away. "You've killed him."

"Gonna prosecute me for it?"

"I should." He opened his other eye, he could usually silence Claire with that one-eyed stare, but not tonight. "If I drew a male judge, I know I could convict." Her hand began to move, and he groaned. "Oh God, don't hurt me."

She laughed and took her hand away. "See what happened as a result of Adam choosing the ability to pee standing up instead of multiple orgasms?"

He shook his head in disbelief, she did NOT just refer to their boss, then he laughed, catching it. "I'm a little slow, sorry, I swear I thought you were talking about our Adam, not the original."

"That would slow me down, too." She held her head up with her hand. "Good Lord, thinking of Adam Schiff and God having a discussion like that, gee Adam, God says, what would you rather have?"

"Let's not go there," he said, and reached for her hair, playing with it, he loved the silky feel of her hair. "What got into you today?"

"You." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "Sometimes all I have to do is look at you and…" She sighed. "Where's Mr. Winkie when you need him?"

"Woman, you are dangerous tonight." He rolled away from her and stood. "Want a drink?"

"Sure." She watched him walk out of the bedroom, thinking he had such a gorgeous body, she never tired of looking at him, touching him with something akin to wonder, that magnificent body was hers to play with whenever she wanted. He came back with two glasses of Scotch.

"Here." He sat on the bed, then noticed the look in her eyes. "Oh no. Not again. You will definitely kill me."

She sipped her scotch. "It's what you get for parading around here in the buff. And to think you have such a reputation as a horny bastard. If the women only knew three or four rounds of raunchy sex had you running for cover, they'd never believe it."

He leaned against the headboard, pushing a pillow into position, then sipped his drink. "At least I know my secret is safe with you."

"Unless you piss me off." She wiggled next to him, making him share the pillow.

"I'll be sure not to do that." His arm went around her. "What preventive measures can I take?"

"The only way to be absolutely certain I won't spill my guts on the next girls' night out is to love me forever."

"I can do that. And since when do you go on a girls' night out?"

"I don't, but nothing says I can't."

He smiled. "I assure you I will love you forever." He leaned down and kissed her.

She yawned, then put her scotch aside on the night table. She got up, moving languidly, opening a drawer and reaching for her nightshirt. She pulled it over her head and shook herself, letting it fall over her body. Then she went into the bathroom. She came back a few minutes later, her face cleansed of makeup, teeth brushed; Jack knew her routine and knew her day had ended. She put her pillow in place, then stretched out on her side, facing away, pulling the covers up to her shoulder. "G'night, Jack."

He patted her hip. "You could fall asleep during the raunchiest sex we've ever had," he said, his affection running from his hand into her heart. "Amazing skill." It was true, when Claire decided she wanted to sleep, she slept, it could be in the middle of a Led Zeppelin concert. He finished his drink, then pulled his shorts on and settled down, turning off the light and then rolling to drape his arm over her waist.

Claire and Jack got into the elevator. She leaned against the wall and he looked at her. "What," he said.

"I'm going to walk funny all day."

"Hey, you did it to yourself," he said.

"I did not!" She swung her briefcase playfully at Mr. Winkie's last known location. "I distinctly recall your immediate presence in the affected area."

"Hah." He glanced at the security camera, then bent to kiss her anyway. "And let's not talk about walking funny, I just hope my manly manner isn't affected, I'd hate to walk into court looking like a worn out old man."

They signed in, then went to Jack's office. Mattie, his clerk, came out of her cubicle, and Jack involuntarily looked at his watch. Mattie never got here before he did, in fact, he so rarely saw Mattie in person that he felt he should card her, make sure she was for real. She held a blueback.

"This came after you left last night. Graham signed for it, then gave it to me this morning." She slapped it into his open palm. "Want some coffee?"

"Sure, thank you," he said, and glanced at Claire, then he grinned. One of them had to take the first step. He opened his door and gestured for her to sweep in ahead of him, thank God he could claim he was being a gentleman.

"Don't fool me," she whispered as she passed him, he did notice the slightest hitch in her walk. They hung their overcoats, plopped briefcases down, and then sat, both of them delicately, and Claire winked at him. "I don't know how long I can sit in this chair."

"You asked for it, remember." He opened the blueback and skimmed it, then frowned and read it again, leaning forward on his desk. "What the fuck?" he said. Mattie came in and he heard a slight intake of breath. He glanced up, damned if she wasn't blushing. "Sorry, Mattie, but English is my second language. My father spoke profanity at home." She put the coffee down, accepted their thanks, disappeared with practiced speed. Jack picked up his coffee, then looked at the blueback again. "Didn't you arraign this guy yesterday? Said he confessed, it was a slam dunk?" He passed the document to her.

It was a motion to suppress the confession, on the grounds that Mr. McGwire was drunk when the detectives interviewed him, read him his rights, took his statement. She put it down and met Jack's gaze head-on. "I didn't speak to him, I was in the corridor with Anita the whole time. I had no reason to think he was anything but stone cold sober. Lennie and Rey would have known, they spent too much time too close to him." She tapped the motion with her finger. "Fraser said something in arraignment about a spirited defense, I thought he was blowing smoke."

"Our boy David never blows smoke. Neither did his father. Why didn't you tell me David Fraser had been assigned to this defendant -" he reached over for the motion, "-Albert McGwire?"

"Didn't think it mattered, he's a Legal Aid attorney, not some hotshot from Wall Street. Not even Johnny may you burn in hell Cochran."

He frowned. "Do not - ever - underestimate David Fraser. Why he's not in private practice is a mystery. He learned from his father, who is probably one of the finest trial lawyers in the country. This is just an opening salvo across the bow." He rubbed his neck. "Damn it. Get Briscoe and Curtis's asses over here now." He looked at his watch, then picked up the phone. "Mattie? Has this motion been calendared for chambers? Oh great. Thank you."

"Don't tell me, ten o'clock this morning."

"Almost that bad. One o'clock. I want to see those detectives now, if they have to use snowshoes to get here, then tough shit." He picked up the coffee, took a careless sip and spewed it, gasping. "Shit, damn, and hell!" He fanned his tongue.

She got up and went to her cubicle. Hitting the speed dial button for the two seven, she soon had Briscoe's word they would be there as soon as possible. This was shaping up to be A Very Bad Morning, and if it was followed by A Fucking Nightmare Afternoon, she was sleeping at her place tonight. Her phone buzzed. She snatched it up, almost dropped it, then pinned it to her ear. "Kincaid."

"Your butt, here, now." Jack hung up and she held the receiver away, not knowing if she should be pissed or worried. She got up and returned to his office. He held a second blueback, and he was officially Not Happy. She eased into her chair and held her hand out. Notification of affirmative defense - self defense, supported by assertions that Mr. McGwire's mental state was such that he could not distinguish the difference between reality and the nightmares of his addled brain. Well, I'm glad I got laid last night, Claire thought, it could be awhile now, this was the kind of case that consumed all Jack's waking thoughts.

Briscoe and Curtis walked in half an hour later, both clearly defensive. Jack stood and offered them seats. Then he went into meltdown mode.

"Did you even consider the suspect had been drinking? According to this, you put a pint bottle of Southern Comfort into an evidence bag, did you not make the connection between the bottle and the homeless man?"

"Look, McCoy," Rey began.

"Mr. McCoy," Jack snapped, and Claire thought oh good God, this is going to be as much fun as a raging yeast infection.

Rey's eyes narrowed. "Mr. McCoy," he began again, "the man smelled like nothing I can describe, he stank of so many different things there's no way we could have picked out the smell of alcohol as coming from his breath or his clothes, and anyway, if we had smelled alcohol on his breath, that wouldn't mean it wasn't his first sip of the day. He was lucid, your ADA can tell you that, he did not sound like he was drunk." He looked at Claire for confirmation, and she nodded.

"And you didn't think to do a breathalyzer? Right there at a police station? Or to seek the counsel of my ADA as to whether to proceed or not? Or even the direction of your lieutenant?" He got up too fast and winced, catching his penis on the edge of the drawer. Claire looked away, if she so much as hinted at a smile, he'd be eating her lunch, too. "What else have you screwed up?"

"Mr. McCoy," Lennie said, underscoring the mister with heavy sarcasm. "It was a good interview. McGwire was coherent, he wasn't slurring his words, he seemed in full control of his faculties."

"The fact that he'd just stabbed a teenage boy and watched him bleed out sound like he's in full control of his faculties?" Jack's face was turning red. "Go write affidavits and get them sworn." He thrust his hands in his pockets. "I want them within the hour, I have to counter this fucker at one o'clock."

The detectives stood and left his office without another word. Jack looked at Claire. "Come up with precedents, where statements were admitted into evidence despite the presence of alcohol. I'm guessing no one administered any kind of blood test or breathalyzer, so we can take the position he was sober when he talked to the detectives and Fraser can't prove otherwise."

Claire got up. Jack still had his hands in his pockets, and she wondered for a second if he had hurt himself, but the expression on his face told her not to mention anything that wasn't related to this motion. She left the office and seated herself at her computer. Tim stuck his head in the tiny office, offering coffee, which she accepted, waiting for the search engine to finish its task.

She took four printouts to Jack's office at ten-thirty. He was in shirtsleeves, his tie knot undone, and he was lying on the couch, reading. He dropped the paper when she came in. She looked at him, then cocked her head. "Did I really hurt you last night?" she whispered.

"No." His expression softened. "My desk drawer wasn't quite closed, I wasn't expecting that jolt." He sat up and patted the couch. "I apologize for snapping at you."

"It's OK." She sat on the couch with him, not too close, offering her documents. He took them, glanced at them, then sighed. She reached over and quickly, covertly, rubbed his shoulder. "You've had to fight worse motions with less notice before."

"I know." He rubbed the back of his neck, then rolled his head. "Briscoe and Curtis's Frick and Frack routine is getting a bit old."

"You know better than that, Jack," she countered. "They're good detectives."

"So you keep telling me, but there's been some sloppy work of late."

A knock made them both look up. Lennie stood there, holding papers. "Two duly sworn affidavits of the facts as Rey and I know them."

Claire got up and walked to the doorway, taking the papers from Lennie. "Thank you," she said. Lennie held her gaze for a second, then nodded and turned away. She watched him walk toward the security portal, his shoulders sagged and she felt sorry for him. Being on the receiving end of Jack's wrath was not fun. She turned back to Jack, glancing at the statements as she crossed the floor to his desk. She gave them to him. "Want me to order lunch?"

He looked at his watch. "Sure. Whatever you want." He leaned back in his chair to read. She left him to it, and retreated to her office.

They were in Judge Richmond's office at one on the dot. Jack was antsy, bursting with penned energy, anger, frustration. Then David Fraser came in, wearing a suit that no doubt cost more than Jack's, good looking and cocky in that natural way of the privileged. He brushed sandy hair off his forehead, then offered his hand to Jack.

"David Fraser," he said. "We haven't met, but my father speaks highly of you." They shook hands, then he turned to Claire and extended his hand again, but he winked. "Ms. Kincaid. My father, to his detriment, doesn't know you. He mounted a spirited defense of our Mr. McCoy many years ago. What was it, Jack, public disturbance?"

Jack flushed. "Yes." He bit the word off, then looked at Claire, whose eyes had opened wider. "It was nothing. We were protesting the war, several hundred of us were carted off. David's father got all the charges, which were bogus, dismissed."

"Still, I admire that revolutionary spirit. My father has great war stories."

The door to chambers opened, and they were ushered inside. Judge Richmond was seated at his desk, motion and counter open in front of him. "Be seated," he said to the attorneys. "I don't know that I even need to hear argument on this, it seems clear to me that once the detectives took a bottle of bourbon from the defendant, they should have erred on the side of caution and presumed he was bombed out of his mind. Mr. McCoy, you don't seriously expect me to entertain argument to the contrary?"

"I do, Your Honor. The detectives believed he was sober."

Judge Richmond shook his head. "I don't see how they could have made that presumption, given the evidence they had. Just because the defendant wasn't reeling, or slurring his words, is no reason to presume, once they'd extracted a bottle of liquor from his jacket pocket, that he was sober, that he could be interviewed. Basic police work - you can't take a confession from an intoxicated person. No, it just won't fly. The confession is suppressed."

Claire looked at Jack, then at David Fraser, who still wore the bland expression he'd taken into chambers. Jack looked like he'd swallowed a bee.

"Thank you, Your Honor," Fraser said.

Dismissed, Jack and Claire returned to Hogan Place. As they walked, Claire said, "C'mon Jack, you didn't really think you'd win that one, did you?" They stopped at a crosswalk.

"No, I guess not." The light changed and he put his hand on her back, guiding her across the street in that absent way he had.

Adam was pragmatic about it, and told them to concentrate on destroying any kind of affirmative defense. Jack spent the afternoon studying case law, assigning Claire a few to digest as well. They were there until nine, when Claire simply couldn't deal with it anymore. "Jack?"

He looked up. "Babe."

"Let's pack it in."

He looked at his watch, then slammed the book shut. "Amen." He stood and stretched, then grabbed his back. "Muscle soreness," he said, "you know how it is." He dug into his back as best he could with his fingers. "Want to get a drink?"

"Sure."

They went into their favorite place, wood and brass with a long, burnished bar running the entire length of the room. It was favored by the upwardly mobile young, but it had rules about loud music and rowdy behavior, Jack liked it because he could actually hear what Claire was saying, and the bartender was quick with the rounds. They sat in their usual place, at the end of the bar, turning to each other, letting the tensions of work leak out as they sipped their first drinks; they communed with their knees and their eyes until they no longer felt the weight of the office.

"So," Claire said, as their second drinks were put in front of them, "tell me about the revolutionary spirit."

He shook his head. "I wanted to choke him. Ancient history. I was a student, law school, we protested, we chanted, we thought we'd change the world." He belted back half the scotch. "And then we learned our government, our good old boys in the National Guard, would shoot us down and walk away without so much as a slap on the wrist." She heard the bitterness in his voice. "Twenty-five years and it still pisses me off. No one ever did even an hour of time for four murders." When he saw her incomprehension, he added "Kent State."

A light flared in her eyes. "McGwire mentioned that. He said he was there."

"At Kent?" Jack downed the second half of his scotch. "What did he say?"

"That he was shot by soldiers. He went to college on the GI Bill, after Vietnam."

Jack held his chin up with hand, leaning heavily on the bar, his eyes focused somewhere long ago and far away. "Man," he said. "What a long, strange trip that was." He sat up when the bartender put fresh drinks down. "It more or less ended the anti-war movement. Can you imagine, at the time polls said the results of that terrible day were the most popular murders in America?"

She shook her head. "You're kidding."

"I'm not." He rolled his head again, and her hand moved, she kneaded his stiff neck while he closed his eyes and quietly moaned.

"Are you getting a migraine?" she asked.

"No. Just thinking about this huge clusterfuck. Vietnam, then Kent, now he's homeless and he's murdered a kid not much younger than he was when the war, the slaughter, happened. I wonder how strongly Fraser will argue that events made him crazy - that I can handle in two minutes, blindfolded."

She massaged behind his ears, lightly manipulating the skin and tissue over his skull, then ran her fingers up to his temples before returning to his neck and then out to his shoulders. "Why don't we go home, I can really work these muscles."

He nodded. Much as it went against his grain to show any kind of weakness, he couldn't hide things from Claire, and he found surrendering immediately was better than prolonging the ultimate by pretending he was fine. She had her wallet out and two twenties on the bar before he could touch his hip pocket. "Thanks, Claire," he said. He picked up his glass and drained it, couldn't let good booze go to waste, he thought, then he and Claire got their coats on and walked out into the cold. She hailed a cab; usually when they went out, she limited herself to one, maybe one and a half drinks, but it had been a day from hell and so she'd gone over the limit, a cab was required. She gave the driver her address.

Jack leaned against her, his eyes closed. He'd said it wasn't a migraine, and she believed him, if only because he could still hold his head up to some extent, but whatever had him was pounding him into the floor. They got in her apartment and she turned lamps on with the master switch. Coats in the closet, she turned and put her arm around his waist, walking to the bedroom. He sank on the side of the bed and rubbed his temples.

"C'mon," she said, "get your clothes off." She tugged on his sweater. A minute later, he was face down on her bed, in his shorts, then she undressed, putting on sweatpants and a long tee shirt. She went in her bathroom and returned with a bottle of oil. She eased onto the bed, then straddled his bottom. "This will feel good," she said, pouring a little oil into her palm to warm it. She worked on him for an hour, starting with his neck and ending with the small of his back; he was asleep when she finished. She managed to work the covers out from under him and folded the spread back to the foot of the bed, covering him to the waist with the sheet. Then she turned off the light and went back to the bathroom.

Routines for face and teeth complete, she checked on Jack, then closed the bedroom door and went into the living room, hitting the remote's power button. She watched CNN for fifteen minutes, then switched to Turner Classic Movies, she was an old movie junkie and this was her fix whenever she could get it. She was immediately caught by a story about a ditzy blonde misdiagnosed with radium poisoning, of all things, and the New York reporter who tracked her to Vermont and took her to New York, along with her local doctor. It was incredibly funny, face-paced, with biting satire about New York, the newspaper business, and the phoniness of people in general. She recognized the female lead, Carole Lombard, but couldn't identify the leading man, so she hit the TiVo guide button. Fredric March. It clicked, she'd seen him in Inherit the Wind or something like that, about the Scopes monkey trial, with Spencer Tracy. He'd been a much older man when that film was made, no wonder she didn't recognize him - and his character in the latter film had been bald as well. She grinned. God, she absorbed trivia like a leech ingested blood - she didn't forget things often. It made school a breeze, but it had its drawbacks, too.

A dull thud had her pressing the pause button and getting up. Then her bedroom door opened and Jack stood there, rubbing the front of his head. "Ran into it," he said, swinging the door back and forth on its hinges. "If Mr. Winkie didn't have his own agenda, I'd accuse you of doing it on purpose. You're always saying you'd like to whack me upside my precious head." He was still in his shorts; she glanced involuntarily in Mr. Winkie's direction and saw no indication he was alive, let alone well, and she smiled. "What," he said, coming into the living room.

"Mr. Winkie my ass. You woke up alone and it scared you." She pulled his head down in her lap and worked the afghan over him.

"Mr. Winkie, your ass. Hmm. Sounds doable." He held her left knee. "Quit wiggling your ass, I have a headache on top of everything else, you're making me seasick."

She stroked his head from temple to behind the ear with her index finger. The repetition lulled him back into an uneasy sleep. Then she laid her hand on his shoulder and resumed the movie, she wanted to see how Hazel got out of the mess created by herself and Wally. Jack twitched, he was a restless sleeper when he was preoccupied, and she suspected this new case brought some memories back from his personal land of the lost, where he banished things he didn't want to think about. When the movie ended with its requisite happiness - Hazel faked suicide, then ran off with Wally, along with a drunken Dr. Downer, to get married - she switched the TV off and then thought about how to get Jack back into bed. She decided to try and gently wake him rather than leave him sleeping on the couch, he might go flying out the window this time, instead of running into a door, if he woke and didn't know where he was.

"Jack." She whispered into his ear, absently brushing his hair back. "Jack, let's get in bed."

He stirred, grabbed her hand and kissed it, but didn't open his eyes. She made a few more attempts at subtlety, then spoke in her normal voice right into his ear. "John James McCoy, get your ass in my bed now."

His eyes opened and he sat up. She saw that momentary flash of panic that came with being in her apartment and not his, then he knew where he was and he smiled. "OK, you don't have to yell at me." He got up, dragging the afghan around his shoulders. "If you pay your bill, Con Ed will let you have heat," he mumbled, going ahead of her to the bed. He dropped the afghan and fell onto the mattress, burrowing under the covers. She got in on the other side and snuggled next to him, her arm around his waist. Barely awake, his hand nonetheless reached for hers and tried to push it lower.

"Not tonight, you have a headache," she said, and he dropped her hand. She kissed his shoulder and closed her eyes. She fell asleep with his twitches, adjusting to them as she adjusted to his breathing, and dreamed of being in the movie she'd watched, life as Hazel Flagg.

They had a meeting scheduled with David Fraser, a deal offer they both knew would be rejected. Jack drove them out to Rikers, wishing it could have been done in his office, sometimes the law's requirements chapped his ass, like requiring the defendant to be present at meetings about his future. He parked in the visitor's lot. Claire was out before he was, he had to reach in the back seat and get his briefcase as well as his overcoat. He shrugged into it, then closed the door and locked the car. He met Claire at the hood, and she slipped her bare hand into his coat pocket. They walked into the huge prison, Claire separating herself from his coat as they approached the doors. They signed in, attached badges, and were escorted to the conference area, a caged room with a table and a few chairs, the same one, he noted with a sour edge, where he'd been royally kicked in the balls.

Fraser and McGwire were waiting. McGwire was now clean-cut, Claire thought he must have been handsome when he was young, quiet and listening intently to the legalese that flew around the room.

"No deal, Jack," David politely said. "Al was not responsible for his actions in any legal sense, as he was diagnosed years ago with PTSD, and now untreated syphilis is doing a number on his brain." David put a file back in his briefcase.

"Where's the medical proof of the syphilis," Jack said, "and how can anyone in this day and age go around with untreated syphilis?"

"When you don't know you have it you don't treat it," McGwire said, his first comment all day. "I was in Vietnam, we got godawful cases of crotch rot over there all the time, from the rivers, the climate, whatever. You just dumped powder on it and soldiered on it. That's what I thought it was, and by the time I came home, I was fine. Thought so, anyway."

"We'll get proof," David said. "And then there's the trauma he suffered at Kent State University, which exacerbated his PTSD from Vietnam." He snapped the latches on his case, then drummed his fingers. "All I need is one Vietnam vet and he walks. I would prefer he be hospitalized without the attached prison setting. You want him locked up." He shook his head. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one, Jack." He stood and put his hand on his client's shoulder. "I expected a little empathy from you."

Jack inhaled, then slowly released his breath. He stood as well, and turned toward Claire. "Truth be told, I haven't had time to think lately, you've been filing so many Pains in Ass motions I haven't been able to think of anything but your latest effort to screw with my head." Claire stood and walked to their coats, lying on a chair in the corner.

"Then I'll send a private letter, Jack, outlining my expectations and reasoning, and what I think a fair deal really is."

McGwire stood then, and a confused look passed over his face. "Dave? Is he the one you call a butt pirate?"

Jack's eyes widened, and Claire turned around to hide her grin. David Fraser colored slightly but smiled. "Yes, but not in the sense you think, Al. He just likes to stick it to those he perceives as the bad guys. Shall we?" He gestured to the door and the CO opened it. Al McGwire was taken back to his cell and the attorneys walked to the exit. Jack and Claire signed out first and turned in their badges. Once on the other side of the gate, Claire touched Jack's elbow. "Should we wait for him?" she whispered.

Jack glared at David Fraser, who passed his badge to the CO and said something. He was through the gate before Jack decided. Once outside the prison, he turned to Jack.

"Hey, sorry about Al, he really is messed up. No insult was intended, Jack, you know that."

"Yeah, sure," Jack said. "We're over there. I'll look for your proposal."

"You'll have it by COB." David turned right where they turned left, waving over his shoulder without looking back.

Jack took Claire's elbow and guided her to the car. He opened the back door and threw his briefcase in, followed by his coat, then got in the front seat. Claire buckled her seatbelt, then reached over and touched his hand, resting on the ignition as he stared through the windshield at the prison. "C'mon, Jack, it was kind of funny."

He looked at her, then turned the key. A smile toyed with the corner of his mouth. "I've been called a lot of things in my life," he said, twisting to look behind the car as he backed out, "but that one is a first."

"We can play buccaneer tonight. I'll buy you an eye patch and a plastic sword."

He put the car in drive. "You do that and you'll find out what the term butt pirate really means." She heard the undertone, a smoky, sexy drawling sound. He drove off the grounds, then turned on the radio, tuned to the oldies station. Grace Slick's unmistakable voice poured through the speakers, asking didn't he want somebody to love, and he looked at Claire. She was staring out the window. She couldn't be that naïve, he thought, tapping his finger against the steering wheel. Yeah, she can, he answered himself, but how in hell do I even ask the question and what do I do if she says no? She twirled hair around her finger as she watched the passing scenery, a young girl's gesture, and it stabbed him again, her youth, her idealism, and she had chosen him, a guy twice her age, cynical, shut off to the world. She chose him, and he loved flaunting it, loved being out with her, watching heads turn, seeing the lust followed by the lucky bastard look in the eyes of younger men.

Grace Slick segued into Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Ohio. He felt a different piercing of his heart. The man he'd just left had been there. Jack wanted to ask him if he knew her and found her dead on the ground, as the song asked the world at large. It had been a shattering event, and like all shattering events, conspiracies bloomed around the central facts, that in thirteen seconds a generation dedicated to social change, ending an unjust war, and drugs, sex, and rock and roll was silenced. Jack's idealism died with the four students. He'd finished the semester, then went home for the summer, what he planned to be the summer, but he'd been there less than a week when his father started in on him. Cut your goddamn hair, didn't you hippies learn anything from what happened in Ohio? We're not going to put up with your shit anymore. His grin nauseated Jack, this was the man who happily beat protesters at the Democratic Convention in '68, the man who drank a beer the day Bobby Kennedy died. Jack's nausea came not from his father's attitude, but from the realization that he truly hated this man, hated him and everything he was, even if he was the source of Jack's being.

He nearly ran a red light. Claire's "Jack!" came at the same time he realized the light had changed, and he slammed the brakes, stopping in time, but with a sick feeling. He had to concentrate. He licked his lips, then looked at Claire, who stared at him. "Jack, where are you?"

"I was thinking about my father," he said. He looked at his watch, he wished he could take the rest of the day off and get good and drunk.

Not good, Claire thought, but she rubbed his thigh as the light turned green and they rolled forward. She tried to make the connection, what about going to Riker's would spark memories of his father? If he followed his usual form, he'd be in a black mood for days, drink way too much, lay down the law instead of laying her, tearing defendants to pieces.

Eric Clapton's Layla replaced Ohio. Jack drew slow, deep breaths, watched the road, ordered his father out of his head. "How would you like to get fired?"

She looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"How would you like to get fired? I have this urge to say screw work, and go home instead. Spend the afternoon and evening doing twisted things with our bodies, make prank phone calls to Adam, order pizza. Teach you what butt pirate means."

She blushed. "I know what it means, and what in the name of all that's holy has gotten into you? You may have Jack McCoy's body, but you aren't Jack."

He grinned. "I could be." He reached over, still watching the road, and took her knee in his hand, squeezing it. "I just want to cut loose, say the hell with responsibility. Go back in time, to an era when we did things like hang out, drink beer, smoke dope, listen to music, and if we simply had to go to class, go." He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry. I'm just thinking about this case. Fraser's going to expect us to cut a deal, I'm not sure we should. I mean, yes, that man endured terrible things, but other men have endured them and not stabbed a teenager to death." He glanced at her. "I'm just a little confused right now."

"Just a little, you think?" They were in heavy traffic. "I'd love to ditch work, to spend the rest of day doing all the things you suggested, but we can't. We won't. We're the responsible types, remember?"

"Yet somehow I managed to enjoy my college experience."

"Did you really get arrested?"

"Yeah. It was the day after another group broke into the draft board and poured blood all over the records. The cops rounded us up, we said rude things to them, they shoved us around, jammed us in cells, and left us. I have no idea who did it, but someone called David's father, and he came to the rescue. Cut quite the figure, David's father, with his long hair pulled back in a ponytail, his gold wire-rims, looked a bit like John Lennon. And in the end, it was dismissed, the city didn't want to deal with it, we certainly didn't want to deal with it, there were too many other things to do, like hang out, drink beer, smoke dope, listen to music, and get laid."

"And you actually graduated at the top of your law school class?"

He smiled. "What can I say? I'm brilliant, incisive, charming, and I actually studied. Though I confess I hid my law books inside 'On the Road' when the chicks were around."

She snorted. "Chicks? Get out of Jack right now, you merry gremlin you. Next you'll be telling me you were at Woodstock."

"I might have been. No one who was really there remembers it."

She opened her purse and rummaged through it. "Can you pull over at the next gas station? I need a drink to wash the aspirin down."

He surprised her by pulling into one almost immediately, she hadn't seen the Shell station. "What do you want?" he asked, getting out. "Diet Coke?"

She nodded, busy trying to get the top off the aspirin bottle. He came back a couple of minutes later with two drinks. She took hers and washed the pills down. "Thanks."

"Have I really given you a headache?"

Her smile was sweet. "No, not you, I promise. I do have a headache, but who wouldn't, it hasn't been a week for the books. I'm actually entertained by all these lies you're telling about your wild youth."

"You know what the sad thing is? They aren't lies. There was a time when I knew how to have fun, be irresponsible." He eased back in traffic. "I wonder where that Jack went." He sighed. "I guess it's called growing up."

"You grew up just fine, Jack."

Don't adore me, he thought, I'll break your heart because I am a world class bastard, the son of a world class bastard, blood will tell. He had to look away from the love in her eyes, he felt so unworthy of it. He followed the sea change that affected so many after May 1970, had it been gradual or sudden? He couldn't remember. He just knew that he ended up interviewing with Adam Schiff and suddenly found himself working for the enemy, at first telling himself he could best effect changes from the inside, and then his insides changed somewhere along the way. But when he stopped to look around and think, he saw almost everyone he knew changing in similar ways.

They went back to work. Jack found himself reading the background on Al McGwire, on his victim, telling himself he spoke for the victim, it was his job, yet right now he was having trouble deciding who was the clear victim in this clusterfuck. Yes, the boy was the primary victim, tormenting the wrong man, a man who'd been victimized as a kid, with no one to speak for him. He read of his wound from that day in May, a M-1 bullet tore through his abdomen, only luck had prevented internal organs from being struck. He'd stabbed the kid in the abdomen, with no such luck guarding the kid. McGwire had a sheet, so did the kid. Someone in a gas mask tried to murder McGwire, McGwire had murdered the kid, wearing a mask of hair and confusion and torment. He rubbed his face. 'He saw wrong and tried to right it' echoed in his mind, where did it come from? Then he remembered. Bobby. From Teddy's eulogy. And Jack spent his adult life trying to right wrongs that could never be righted.

They went to Claire's apartment again, getting home around nine. Jack was exhausted, he barely tasted the take-out Claire put on plates, washing it down with beer, so tired he felt blind and deaf. He finally got up and took his almost untouched plate into the kitchen. When he came back to the couch, Claire scooted next to him, and he put his arm around her.

"Jack? Talk to me."

He shrugged. "I'm just tired."

"Want to go to bed?"

He did. He wanted to sleep, the kind of sleep where he wouldn't dream, wouldn't wake up to pee, where he'd sleep until the alarm went off, and then he'd find Claire beside him. "Yes," he said.

He was asleep within minutes of getting into her bed, aware she'd fitted herself to him, as she always did, holding him as his exhaustion overcame any desire he had to speak, to move, to do anything but surrender to this weighty need to sleep.

Adam called for him two minutes after he walked in the office. Still tired after what anyone else would call a good night's sleep, he dragged himself into the office and sat, waiting.

"I got a copy of Fraser's proposal. I want you to cut a deal, but I'm not buying this mental disease copout. I know PTSD is real, and I know what happened at Kent, but he still murdered a boy and then watched him die. The parents are devastated, and that Fraser kid is playing to the press, calling this McGwire character a victim who fell through the cracks, and so this inescapable tragedy occurred. Bullshit. The sixties are over. We were both there, we lived through it, it was an anomaly, but it's not an excuse for middle-aged men to go off the deep end and blame it on bad acid at Woodstock."

Jack nodded. "I know. I sometimes wonder if the hangover from that time will ever go away." He rubbed his eyes. "Claire has no concept of what it was like then, so she's not very sympathetic to our Mr. McGwire, and far more empathetic toward Mr. Watkins, though she does see that his teenage desire to engage in asshole behavior is what got him killed."

"Ridding the world of an asshole is not an affirmative defense," Adam snarled.

"I know. All of this feels eerily familiar, similar to the Susan Forrest case."

"And you sent her ass to jail."

He shrugged. "I did, but overall, was it the right thing to do? None of it is clear - it isn't cut and dried, black and white. It's more like the man in the moon, sometimes you see him clearly and other times you're not sure, is he there? Or is it that you want him to be there?" He felt the tapping of a tension headache at the base of his skull, and he rubbed his neck. "As a prosecutor I see this in simple terms: McGwire murdered a boy, he can't say he didn't really mean to do it, because he sat there and watched him die instead of getting help. Watkins tormented this man for months, going by his box, which he sees as his home, every day after school to rag him, to bug him. I can see Fraser making the case that Watkins pushed McGwire into a reaction, treated him like shit and found it amusing to ridicule him, to tear up his box, and then got what he least expected. He wanted to humiliate McGwire, instead he wound up gutted and dying in a New York alley. Fine end to a young life, that one." He squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know what my duty is, to prosecute him vigorously and fairly, but what serves the better purpose - to incarcerate him or send him off to a state mental hospital for God knows how long?"

"You'll have to make that decision, but I think he understands only too well what he did, the difference between right and wrong, well enough that he wants to skate the consequences, exactly like any other defendant. Cut a deal with his lawyer, I want this to go away."

"So do I." He got up. "I need to find some aspirin. I'll get back to you when I've decided what course we'll take."

He studied Jack for a moment. "Bad night?"

Jack nodded. "Serious headache. I think I was asleep by ten."

He nodded. "You can work from home if it comes back." He smiled. "I'll even throw Ms. Kincaid into the deal, she can go with you and make sure you take care of yourself." They faced each other, the silence was oppressive for a few moments, then Adam sighed. "Marry the girl, Jack, so I don't have to keep turning a blind eye to the blazingly obvious, I'm getting tired of saying the rules don't apply to you by my inaction."

Jack shrugged. "I probably will, Adam. It's reached the point where I can't imagine life without her." His headache went from tapping to hammering in an instant. "Gotta find those aspirin."

"Go home if you need to," Adam said to his retreating back. "I'd rather you did that, got some work done at home, than deal with Ms. Kincaid hovering around your grouchy, hurting self."

Jack didn't answer. He left the office, asking Adam's secretary if she had aspirin. She said she had Tylenol, would that do? Absolutely, he would swallow anything if it promised to kill this headache. He palmed two into his mouth, swallowed, and walked into his office. He looked at the stack of documents on his desk and groaned. One thing at a time, he thought, and he found Fraser's proposal and stretched out on the couch with it.

Fraser wanted commitment for a definite term, something Jack knew wasn't possible, no one could state that the man would be returned to anything resembling sanity within a defined period, and Jack wasn't ready to concede that McGwire was insane to begin with. He re-read McGwire's account of his crime - those nasty boys returning yet again, to throw rocks and bottles at his 'house' while singing "White Rabbit" and laughing at him. Struck in the head by a rock, he'd gotten up and chased them, catching Watkins, and, enraged, pushed beyond any capacity for rational thought, he'd stabbed him. He claimed he saw images of soldiers while it was happening, the jumble of cardboard boxes and the debris associated with a homeless colony became the jungle; the brick walls of the building where he caught Watkins by the back of his blazer became Taylor Hall. All the rage built up over the years spilled out, took possession of McGwire's faculties, and he rammed his bayonet into the screaming teenager, then dropped him and said "There, punk."

Jack avoided military service, unlike so many working class kids. His student deferments rolled over year after year, and safe within the academic fortress, he'd opened fire on the war, the soldiers who carried out the orders of others, protesting, writing articles, feeling smug over his moral superiority and his intellectual agility. He remembered the silence that settled on the campus that day in May, so many years ago, the shocked, disbelieving eyes of his contemporaries as they read papers, watched the news, heard old people on the streets say things like it's about damn time. His father called them a selfish, ungrateful generation. They saw themselves as the saviors of the world. It was all too dreamlike, contemplating the times, right and wrong blurred, driven by the music, the music that articulated a world view for an entire generation. It would never come again, he thought, and thank God it wouldn't, it was too intoxicating. The hangover was too painful.

Claire walked in, papers in hand. He dropped the letter on his chest and looked at her, his eyes revealing the intensity of his headache, his pain, his longing for Jesuit clarity on the issues. She looked at him, then closed the door and came to the couch, sitting on its edge, her hip bumping Jack's.

"It's come back?" She put her palm on his stomach. He nodded. "What can I do? Anything?"

"No," he said. "Adam told me I could go home." He put his hand on hers. "He also said you could go with me, to 'make sure I took care of myself' and maybe get some work done at home. He also told me to marry you." He smiled.

"I'll remind you of that when you're feeling better. Why don't you take him up on his offer? Go home."

"I should be able to work through it."

She scratched his stomach, lightly. "Nonsense. Work through personal issues, yeah, I see that, leave your personal issues at home and do your work, but that doesn't apply when you're incapacitated by pain."

He pressed her hand flat. "I don't know. I don't seem to know a whole hell of a lot right now."

Someone rapped on his door and opened it. Claire had time to retract her hand as she turned to look over her shoulder. Mel Moser leaned in, one hand on the door frame, the other holding the knob. Mel, who'd wanted the job as Jack's assistant, had the seniority, who resented the hell out of Claire Kincaid for snagging the job. She always felt he was thinking she spread her legs for Jack McCoy to get the job, and it infuriated her, but there was no response available, no cutting remark to restore dignity and correct his misconceptions. And now Mel was leaning into the office, looking at her sitting beside Jack McCoy on his couch, it could only reinforce his belief that he'd been fucked out of what was rightfully his. "Jack," he said, "I had a question about a case I just caught, but --" he let his eyes linger on Claire, sitting hip to hip with the boss, "I can come back later."

He forced himself to sit up, moving Claire out of the way. She got up, moving to the chair she usually occupied when working with Jack in his office. Jack got to his feet, pushing his hair back, wishing his head didn't hurt so much.

"What is it, Mel?"

"Armed robbery, clerk shot - he'll live - suspects caught with the gun and the cash. What do I go for?"

Jack rubbed the back of his head, Claire knew it was killing him to stand, to think. He looked at Mel, with the expression of a man trying to recall another man's name, then said "Whatever you think it calls for, Mel. You've never asked that kind of question before, what's up with this case?"

"Nothing special, I just didn't know whether to deal for the max, or leverage a flip, this is part of a larger pattern of intimidation and enforcement by the Russian mob."

Claire watched Jack process Mel's words. She thought Mel had seen her sitting by Jack as he happened to walk by and invented this question on the spot, to embarrass her. Jack finally said "Go with your instincts, Mel."

Mel shrugged. "OK, boss. See you later." He pulled out of the doorway and closed the door behind him.

"I better go home," Jack muttered, "I'm about to toss my cookies." He looked at her. "Will you take me home?"

"Of course. Want me to let Adam know?"

He nodded, then sat on the couch, holding his head in his hands. She moved between the offices via the private entrances. Adam looked up when she walked in.

"Ms. Kincaid?"

"I'm taking Jack home, Adam, he's got a migraine. He mentioned you said I should stay with him?"

"I did."

"Then I'm getting him out of here, I'll handle things."

He nodded. "Just in case I need him, would that be his home or yours?"

She flushed, but it was legitimate question. "His." Dismissed with a curt nod, she returned to Jack. She got him out of the office, the building, into the car, with a minimum of fuss. He followed her into his apartment like a puppy, confident she was in control of events. She led him into his bedroom, asked him to undress. He seemed to follow her example, rather than her words, when she stripped off her suit, he did the same, then he seemed confused by the array of choices. She sighed, then got a pair of sweatpants and an NYU tee shirt that looked older than she was out of a drawer, and gave them to him. She pulled jeans up over her hips, and he stepped into his pants, then he backed to the bed and sat down, his head falling forward. "Jack?" She sat beside him.

"In the bathroom. Vicodin, from when I cracked my ankle playing basketball. Please." He fell onto his back, his feet still on the floor. She went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet over the sink, searching through the bottles of various medications. She found the bottle of Vicodin, and took it to Jack. He sat up when she came back to the bed and took the bottle, tipping one into his palm. He swallowed it, then put the bottle on his night table. "Thank you." He pulled himself onto the bed and wiggled under the sheet. "Will you rub my head?" he whispered.

She got beside him, cradling his head in her lap, leaning over and massaging his temples with an incredibly light touch. She felt chilled and wished she'd put on her pullover, she glanced at it on the foot of the bed, then looked down at Jack. His eyes were closed. At least he knows he can be vulnerable with me, she thought, which was several evolutions ahead of the Jack McCoy she first met, who would admit to no weakness, who pressed ahead no matter how he felt. Convincing Jack that it was OK to have feelings had taken time, she thought, her fingers curling around his ear as she stroked the pain away. The first time he admitted to having feelings had come with one of their first fights, he'd made a snide remark about her youth and inexperience, that she couldn't possibly understand his point, she needed to grow up, that sleeping with an older man didn't automatically result in transference of knowledge and understanding. It was cruel, terribly cruel; blindsided by pain, her eyes filled with tears, understanding too well his subtext, that he was the second older, powerful man she'd taken to her bed. Stunned by his words, she sat, frozen, on the couch while her tears spilled out and ran down her cheeks. He looked at her, and horror replaced arrogance in his eyes, in the set of his mouth; he actually blanched as he realized how cruel, how nasty he'd been.

"Oh God," he said, and he slid across the couch, putting his arms around her rigid body, "I am so sorry, I didn't mean that. Please, Claire." He turned her face, making her look at him, she saw a glint of moisture in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, I'm such a fucking bastard, please forgive me."

Like a coiled snake, she struck, slapping him and then pushing him away, getting to her feet and walking out of her apartment. She walked for a little while, realizing she wasn't safe on the streets at night, and she hoped he'd left. She went home and let herself in. He was still there, sitting where she'd left him, tear tracks in evidence on his devastated face.

"You're still here," she observed. "Silly man. If you're so smart and wise, why didn't you leave?"

"Because I am a bastard." He looked at her, his hands hanging between his knees. "I'm a cruel, insensitive bastard who always has to win. I swear to God I didn't mean what I said."

"Then why'd you say it?" Her voice would have flash-frozen water. She walked into her kitchen and poured a glass of wine. She walked back and stared down at him. "Why did you say it, Jack?"

He stood. He wanted to touch her, and he was afraid to. She moved away from him, knowing how she was affected by his physical presence. "Claire."

She turned, standing by the windows overlooking the street, feeling small and vulnerable. "Jack."

"If you can't forgive me, I understand -"

"Do you?" She sipped her wine, watching him. "You would really understand if I never forgave the great Jack McCoy for being unspeakably cruel? That would involve feelings, Jack."

He'd cried, she remembered that so well, seeing Jack McCoy with tears running down his cheeks and making no effort to conceal them. He stayed where he was, he knew, too, how proximity affected her, affected him, and knew that if he approached her, she'd justifiably see it as manipulation. He'd told her again how sorry he was, that he didn't mean it, he didn't know where it came from, except from a pathological need to win, to crush any opponent, and he told her how much he loved her. She asked him to leave.

She stroked his forehead. He slept, but she continued to rub his head, letting him know she was still there. She loved looking at his face while he slept, the years melted away and the goodness she knew as Jack was all she saw. He'd been so miserable in the days following that argument, that devastating assessment, when she spoke to him only in the course of the job, kept her distance from him, still hurting. He'd followed her out one night, getting in the elevator with her, and then he turned to her, dropping his briefcase and taking her narrow shoulders in his hands, careful not to apply much pressure. "Please," he said, "I love you. I'm sorry."

And she loved him, which was why she leaned her forehead against his chest, let him put his hand on the back of her neck, kiss the top of her head. "You hurt me so much," she said.

"I know. I'm learning what self-loathing feels like."

"I'd rather you knew what love felt like."

"If I didn't, I wouldn't feel so rotten right now." He stroked her spine, his hand sliding under her suit jacket, not to manipulate her physically but to make closer contact. "Can I please come home with you?"

She looked up at him then, weighing the emotion in his face, voice. "You can't hurt me like that again, Jack."

"I know." He kissed her forehead.

"Don't expect me to sleep with you," she said, acknowledging he could come home with her.

"I won't."

He followed her car on his motorcycle, followed her up to the apartment, granting her lead status in this little drama. She tossed her keys in the dish on the end table, put her briefcase away, left him in the living room while she changed into jeans and a blue jersey pullover. He was still standing in the middle of the floor when she came out of the bedroom. "Want a drink?" she asked.

And they'd ended up naked on the floor anyway. She'd never known Jack to be a tentative lover, but he was that time, so afraid of hurting her in any way, and she'd been passive, holding to some part of herself that was afraid of letting go, of letting him get that close again. It wasn't until dawn, when they woke and turned to each other in her bed, that they reunited again. The wounds healed, and Jack acknowledged his feelings, for her, for the thought of losing her.

"Baby," she whispered, finally easing his head out of her lap and reaching for her sweater. She pulled it on, then stretched out beside him, hoping sleep would take his headache away. He twitched, she knew he was dreaming, and she traced the muscles in his back with her finger. He turned to her in his sleep, his arm going around her waist, and she turned on her side, easing against him, fitting her curves to his angles, realizing that in some deep way, Jack knew real peace only in sleep, holding her. Well, she didn't have anything better to do than lie in bed with Jack all day, she thought, and she took his hand in hers, planting it under her breast, ready to sleep, to join him in his dreams in some peaceful place where no one hurt anyone else.

He woke in the middle of the night, curled around Claire, she wore her nightshirt. He came to consciousness slowly, aware of Claire's familiar body and scent, the deep rhythm of her breath. His hand loosely cupped her breast, and he first moved his hand away. She moved, replacing his hand with her own, and was still. Then he got up, avoiding the floorboard that squeaked, and slipped out of the bedroom. He closed the door, and, guided by light filtering in from the street, made his way to the end table by the couch, flipping the lamp switch. Sixty watt light lit the room, and he went into the kitchen, he needed something to drink. He got a can of Diet Coke, then went back to the couch. He sat with his feet on the couch, drew his knees up part way, and dangled the can from his hand, which rested over a knee. His headache was gone, he would have to thank Adam for cutting him some slack.

He felt everything spinning out of control. He swallowed cold coke, he hated cotton mouth, and tried reviewing the overall situation. The case, on its face, was not a big deal, he could plead it out. It sparked a lot of memories, things he'd carefully packed away for a good reason, and that spark, leaping at the dry tinder of his memory, caused him to consider things he'd assumed were resolved years ago. And those thoughts spun off, a screwball pitch curving toward the batter's head, led to Claire. Always Claire, he thought, she was always in his mind, his heart. He'd sworn he'd never marry again, there was no need for it, but now he thought how much he'd like to marry Claire, and obstacles that brought. He knew about the office gossip, he suspected Mel Moser had intruded more to gather innuendo to spread at the water cooler than to get guidance. He heard Mel's voice in his imagination, dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "Yo, Pete, you should have seen it, man, she was practically in his lap. I know, man, I was literally screwed out of the job that should have been mine." Mel, who so wanted to be cool, a hipster, the office stud.

He drank some more, cooling his now burning throat. He knew how hard they tried to be all business at work, but that sometimes their friendship, which was as strong as their love and their lust, led to relaxing the protocols and rules, there was laughter coming from the DA' office these days. Would marriage kill the gossip? Of course, part of him argued. Yeah, well, it would come with rumors, another part of his brain tittered, he only married her because he knocked her up. Claire deserved so much more than rumors and gossip. What, he asked himself, would marriage be like at fifty-four, to a woman bumping the bar of thirty? He envisioned a haven, peace at last, living with someone who understood him, accepted him warts and all, and loved him with a clear-cut passion; Claire played no games, told no lies, she was straightforward about everything. She loved him and didn't care who knew it, but she knew, equally well, the rules governing office romances, and she knew the side-effects of relationships that went south when the workplace didn't. He'd never felt, taken seriously, those repercussions that seemed to affect the women so much, perhaps because he'd never loved any of them. He'd reached the point where he didn't think he was capable of real love, Sally Bell certainly thought so and didn't hesitate to tell him, but oh Holy God, what he felt for Claire was so consuming, so powerful, that he was glad he hadn't known what it was like before he finally joined them for that first time. Feelings like this were too intense to be repeated, relationship after relationship, he felt like destiny saved Claire for him, held her in reserve until he'd given up on feeling anything except lust and the desire to win, and then blew him away with a savage pleasure at the sight of Jack McCoy, on his ass over a woman at long last.

He heard the bedroom door open. He wasn't surprised. She'd probably missed his presence next to her, felt the emptiness of the bed, he knew he did when he woke up and she wasn't there. She sat beside him, her hand on his shoulder, leaning her cheek against that hand. She reached for the Diet Coke with her other hand, took a small sip, gave it back.

"C'mon up," he said, and she rose, then settled herself between his legs, her head on his chest and her hands on his knees, which she rocked back and forth for a second. "Sorry I disturbed you." He kissed the back of her head.

She shrugged. "I always miss you at some point when you sneak out during the night."

"Claire."

She looked up at him, her head rubbing his chest as it moved. "Would you like to get married?"

She looked at him, then, with her ballerina's grace, got up and turned around, locking her long legs around his waist. She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, a slow kiss that could lead to more, or a statement, he wasn't certain yet. "I would," she said, and then she turned her torso, taking the can of Diet Coke and draining it. She leaned over him to put the empty on the table behind him. "I would like it very much, but is it a good time?"

He shrugged. "Is there ever a good time for something as life-changing as marriage? If we want to get married, we should simply do it." He locked his ankles together and pressed his knees against her back.

"We'll have to talk about it. I'd like kids one day."

He smiled. "I think I can arrange that."

"Jack?" She kissed him again, her tongue dancing with his; he took his hands and slid them under her nightshirt, up her bare back. "What's causing these headaches?"

His fingers splayed as he caressed her warm, supple skin, he was a greedy son of a bitch and he wanted to touch as much as possible. He kissed her this time, his tongue more insistent than hers. Then she leaned her head against his, waiting for his answer. "The past," he said. "Thinking about my father, thinking about wanting to change the world, thinking how much it all changed overnight, or so it seems in hindsight."

"Those killings in Ohio?" Her thumbs rubbed his ears.

"Yep. Call it the end of innocence." His hands moved along her ribs. "When your parents commend the government for gunning you down, it kind of destroys any illusions you might have." He kissed her neck, his tongue licking her skin. "And that man at Rikers caught a bullet there."

"Was he protesting, or was he one of the ones just walking to class?"

He looked at her, surprised, she'd been reading, he realized. "I don't know. I want to ask him. Even if he was a protestor, he didn't merit a bullet."

"Just like that kid didn't deserve an Army surplus bayonet in his stomach."

"Right." His hands moved up to her shoulders, held them. Her skin was so alive, he thought, not as an organ, but as Claire, a communicative part of her soul, it radiated warmth and ease, and he loved touching it, absorbing that ease, she was completely comfortable in her skin. She reached for the back of her nightshirt, pulled it over her head, dropped it on the floor, and pushed his shirt up so she could lie against him, skin on skin. He worked his shirt off while trying not move her. Then his arms went around her, his hands caressed her bare back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her cheek on his shoulder. He knew she was aware of his desire, his need for her. She sighed. "It's never easy, is it, Jack? Trying to apportion blame when there are so many deep background issues."

"No. He and I no doubt have similar backgrounds, I just ended up with more options than he had. We grew up hearing the same music, wearing the same kinds of clothes, reading the same kinds of textbooks in school. We diverged probably around high school, choosing the paths that would cross in this city, this time." He raised her head and kissed her. "I have this cold feeling inside, that no matter what I do, I'm doing it to myself, to the Jack McCoy who could have been had I made even one different choice."

She felt his pain, the crisis of conscience he'd avoided for so many years, and she rose off him, pressed against the back of the couch, and reached for his waistband, tugging it. He quickly pulled the garment down, kicked it off, and she slipped back on him, sliding over his penis and gripping it with those textured walls. She moved with an odd rhythm, her face buried in his shoulder. He took her by the shoulders and held her away, looking into her eyes, smiling as she rode him to the beat of her own need, and suddenly he could control himself no longer. She buried him as deeply as possible within her as he trembled and jerked with pleasure, easing her upper body down on his as his spasms slowed. She would keep him inside as long as possible, taking a different kind of pleasure at feeling his. When he finally slipped out, she looked at him. "Let's get in bed, rumor has it we have to work in the morning."

He walked with her, surprised at the rebellion that rose in him at the thought of work. He did not want to go to work. He couldn't help smiling, he remembered the sensation, only it was going to class, and how easily he'd give in to it. As he snuggled against her, waiting to see if she wanted him to use his hand, he whispered "Let's blow work off."

She looked at him, reached up and touched his face. "I love you, Jack McCoy, that's a wonderful idea. Tell me how you feel about it in three hours." She wrapped his arm around her, she wanted him to cup her breast, she loved sleeping like that, and so he did, feeling awake and alive and ready to do something so out of character no one would believe he'd done it. As he dozed, he wondered if long-haired Jack McCoy had been reborn and how long the struggle for his soul would last between the long-haired hippie freak and the tightly wound prosecutor.

He woke again at five-thirty, half an hour before the alarm was set to go off. He reached over and turned it off, then fell on his back and stared at the ceiling, tracking the cracks in the paint from the ceiling light to the walls. Claire slept, curled on her side, her eyelids were moving, and he hoped it was a good dream. He got up and grabbed his robe from the hook on the back of the door. He slipped it on as he went in the kitchen.

He started coffee, then went to the window, looking out into the darkness. He still had that discombobulated feeling. The heater kicked on, he felt warm air rush over his bare feet, and he moved away, back to the kitchen and a cup of coffee. He took his mug to the couch. One leg pulled up, he draped his wrist over his knee, holding the mug with the other. He thought of turning the news on, but didn't want to disturb Claire. He'd decided, in that second where the first sip of coffee ran across his taste buds, that he, that they, weren't going to work. He was tired of being the bad good boy, of putting work, winning, ahead of everything else.

Those kids who died at Kent State, he thought, what would they be now? He remembered that one of them, the girl shot down in the parking lot on her way to class, had planned to be a speech therapist, would she have continued with that? The ROTC student, also slain on his way to class, would he have ended up in Vietnam as a platoon commander, survived his tour? The girl who'd put the flower in the rifle of one of the National Guardsmen the day before one of them put two rounds in her back, what would she have been, what would the boy whose dead body became the symbol of the whole tragedy, a happy go lucky kid according to news accounts he dimly recalled, what would have been his destiny? He'd been like them in many ways, a student with ideals and hopes and certain he and his generation would be the force of change, and look at him now - a workaholic, who drank too much, who was desperately in love with a girl almost half his age, a guy who had to win no matter what. He guessed the seeds for this Jack McCoy were sown in the Jack of all those years ago, in his faded jeans and tee shirts, his flip-flops, his long hair and his razor sharp brain. Who planted the seeds that germinated into the middle-aged man who sat on his couch, planning to play hookey once again? His father, the son of a bitch? Adam? Seeing the same defendants over and over, completely interchangeable, one from the other? At some point it had mattered that he win, that he get the legal order to lock them in cages and leave them to their fate while he went on to the next. When, he thought, when did that happen, and why did it seem to matter so much on this winter morning?

He got up and refilled his mug, glancing at the clock on the stove. Six. He wondered if Claire would wake automatically, or if she would sleep on, her body luxuriating in extra sleep? He sat down and picked up the phone. He knew Adam habitually got up at four, it didn't bother him to call this early.

Adam picked up on the first ring. "Yes."

"Adam, it's Jack. I'm not going to be in today, and if you don't have a problem with it, I'm keeping Claire with me. My head may be killing me, but I can still dictate to her, bounce ideas off her, that sort of thing."

"Bounce, yeah right, you're bouncing all right, my boy." Adam sighed. "Go ahead, take the day, both of you. The office won't come to a screaming halt. I hope you get it worked out, Jack," he said, real empathy in his voice. "It hit me at about the same age. You're not going to work through it in a couple of days, but if staying home today helps, go for it."

"Thank you, Adam. I'll see you tomorrow."

"I hope so, or I want a note from your doctor. Go, make the best of the day, son." Adam hung up.

He should have known there was no fooling the old man, as he should have known Adam would understand. He remembered when Adam obliquely confronted him about Claire, how he'd made it clear he understood but by God there were rules, son, and you can't run around breaking them indefinitely with impunity. And there were, Jack supposed, rules. Rules that would catch up with him sooner or later, but didn't he always escape the consequences of his infractions? He glanced over his shoulder at the bedroom door. That was one infraction that would be worth whatever penalty the gods of law and order imposed on him. He was so grateful he'd survived long enough to find her, God knew he'd had enough close calls with fate. He could not imagine life without her now. He shivered. Standing, he closed his robe and tied it tightly, then sat with his bare feet under his butt, holding the mug between his palms. He sipped. One of the gifts from capricious gods, he thought, the coffee bean. He leaned his head back, closing his eyes, savoring the taste and the smell, or was it the reverse? He opened his eyes, thought about it for a second, and laughed. If he could go into full blown angst over that, he was in trouble.

Scratching his head, he looked around, really looked, at the apartment he'd lived in for years. He supposed he'd be giving it up some day soon, he was going to marry Claire as soon as she said OK, they'd need a bigger place. She said she wanted kids. The thought of fatherhood at his age scared the piss out of him, especially since he was such a spectacular failure with Rebecca. Claire tried to make him feel better about that, pointing out that Rebecca's mother made things difficult, never hesitating to illustrate his human failings with an anecdote from their marriage. Claire grew up with an absent father, she hadn't seen him since she was eight, and she turned out well. She said she didn't think of him at all, and he realized Rebecca was probably the same. He didn't think Claire would ever attempt to keep him away from a child they shared, but still, the idea of walking the floor at night, trying to figure out why the baby was screaming, left to deal with it by his exhausted wife - it's your turn, damn it, Jack - no, not something he wanted to go through again.

Would you deny her that? He got up and walked back to the kitchen, as he poured he warned himself to go easy, he didn't want Claire to wake without coffee waiting. He rubbed his neck as he returned to the couch, found its familiar little indentations, he'd passed out on this couch enough that it was contoured to his body. He wiggled until his butt slipped enough for the back to support his lumbar spine, he had to hit that spot just right or he wouldn't sink quite enough. Would he deny a child to Claire, insist that he couldn't deal with it, demand that if he went along with it, she assume all the responsibility? He had friends who did just that, marrying much younger women, and when the clock caught up with them, acquiesced by insisting the responsibility would be all theirs, they were too old to get up in the night for a squalling infant. Stuck to it, too, or so they said, leaving the handball or basketball court, wiping their aging faces with hand towels. No, he thought, I cannot do that, not to her, not to the person they would share.

He flashed again on the dead students, on the dead teenage soldiers in Vietnam, to the dead kid in an alley - all denied the chance at parenthood, at growing up, the most basic assumption of all humanity, that they would grow up and have adult lives. He'd been given those years, and he worked through them all, oblivious to everything but winning the case, throwing the loser in jail for as long as possible, compassion was for wimpy nuns - he laughed at that image, the nuns he'd known growing up were anything but wimps, they struck terror in the heart of the most hardened bad boy. Brides of Christ - he could imagine a henpecked Jesus, it wasn't hard, not when he recalled some of those nuns.

He'd been fascinated with the Crusades as a boy, and it wasn't particularly insightful to draw a parallel between the boy and the man who sat on his couch in a ratty robe. Some of the ADAs had their own causes - drunk drivers, rapists, child molesters, murderers - Jack took them all, he didn't draw distinctions between anything but winning and losing. The nuns taught him about the Crusades, the priests taught "health" - the euphemism of the day for sex ed. What a sick joke, he thought, Jesuits explaining sex to a bunch of twelve year old boys who'd understood years before that their penises were good for more than peeing. He'd had a recurring nightmare for years, he still didn't understand it, where he was standing beside a mangled car, bleeding and distraught, confused and frightened, something of infinite value had been lost with the car, and a Jesuit came out of the night, to console and guide Jack right back into the arms of Mother Church. It was always raining in the dream and mist mingled with steam from the destroyed car, he always tried to look in the car, but he could never see who was inside, how he got out when someone else did not, but before he could force his way back into the car, the Jesuit would appear out of the mist. "Come, son," he always said, "The ways of God are not our ways, but we must submit to His will."

"Jack?" Claire's voice was frightened, and he twisted around, then got up and smiled. She looked around, her panic subsiding, replaced by a growing confusion. "Jack?" She put her hand on his chest. "We're going to be late for work."

"Nah," he said, "we're not going to work. I already called Adam, he's cool with it. Want coffee?"

She nodded, looking at him like he'd grown a third eye or something. "We are not going to work?"

"No, we're not." He poured coffee into a waiting mug and topped his off. "We," he said, putting the mug in her hands, "are playing hookey. I woke up wanting to be a bad boy again, if for just one day."

"Jack McCoy a bad boy?" She smiled, easing into the far corner of the couch. "So hard to imagine." He saw the tip of her tongue as the mug reached her lips.

"Isn't it." He felt quite merry. "I was, once, a very bad boy. Just ask the nuns."

She shook her head, then raked her hair with her fingers, she was sure she had a good case of bedhead. "I don't need to check your references. I have a feeling I'd laugh myself silly, listening to a nun's view of Jack McCoy." She curled her feet under her bottom. "So what are we going to do with a whole day to ourselves?"

"Whatever we damn well please."

"Wow. A whole day. And Adam said 'cool'?"

"Not that way. He just said it was fine, and he hoped I'd work through it."

"Work through what, love? I know you're wrestling with yourself, I keep thinking you'll talk to me about it."

"I think I'm remembering the past too well. You know, I always thought that, for example, by this time marijuana would be legal, that racism would have gone away, the Army disbanded or at least reduced to something small and manageable, like Britain's." He drank more coffee, he was going to have to make another pot at this rate. "I've just been thinking, in terms of what was lost, I guess - all those kids who never had the chance to be adults, going from that to our case, how young Watkins got up that morning, not knowing it was the last time he'd wake in his bed, brush his teeth, argue with his mother, what have you, he woke up believing he'd have a life, that one day he'd be the parent and boy would it be different for his kids. And there's McGwire, he did get to see adulthood, and what did he do with it? Ended up living out of a box in a filthy alley, eating from a dumpster, losing touch with reality. He had choices he didn't allow Watkins to have, choices the kids he went to school with in Ohio never had, the friends he saw die in Vietnam were denied." He was just getting revved up, she realized, and she shifted her legs, getting comfortable. "I've been asking myself questions I can't answer, such as why I became the man I am, when did it happen - when did winning become so damned important that I sacrificed everything, including relationships, on its altar? And I thought about you, how you've changed everything, that I won't pour more rhetorical blood on the altar of personal sacrifice, you are the most important person in my life." He stopped speaking, self-conscious now, he thought he must sound like a self-absorbed ass.

"You changed everything for me, too, Jack. You gave me back my self-respect." Her eyes widened a little, in the soft focus he knew so well. "You respected me as a person, as an attorney, you didn't give a rat's ass about the stories about Joel and me, the scandal. And when I tried viewing those things through your eyes, I could respect myself again, a little bit at a time. And you've made me feel loved, really loved, I never knew what that felt like. And," she smiled, "you've made me mad as hell more times than I can count, so you've given me self-control, because a lot of times I wanted to whack you with the nearest hard object."

His smile was easy, he turned and put his feet in Claire's lap. One of her hands dropped to the toes of his right foot, warming them without conscious thought. "Glad I can give so much," he said dryly, "now I know I got the better end of the bargain. Although in the name of self-preservation, let me say I'm glad you had some self-control. God, I'd hate getting your skinny ass locked up for three to five for assault on a law enforcement officer."

Her legs moved with speed and grace and suddenly he had her feet in lap, their legs interwoven, and she wiggled her toes. "And you did that without spilling a drop," he marveled sarcastically, actually admiring her execution of the maneuver.

"You ought to know by now the number of amazing things I can do with my legs."

"I do." He wanted more coffee, but he wanted to stay right where he was more. He turned, twisting, and put the mug on the end table, then took her feet in his hands. "I want to know everything there is to know about Claire Kincaid."

"She's still growing, there isn't a lot to say right now."

"Where do you want to be in say five years?"

She shrugged. "Pregnant with your son? I've always wanted a son, there seems something so special about a mother and her son. And not at the DA's office. Maybe being a stay at home mom for a few years. Maybe go into something altogether different." One shoulder shrugged this time. "So, you've decided how you want to dispose of McGwire?"

"I think so." He gently squeezed her toes. "I don't think he's crazy. Life has not been kind to him, that's true, but he's still responsible for what he took away from the Watkins family. He stole potential, one of life's most precious things. Young Watkins may have been an asshole at the time, but who knows what he would have become? I certainly qualified for asshole status at sixteen, at least part time." He smiled. "And I grew up to become a legally sanctioned asshole, still part time, of course." He rubbed the bottom of her left foot with one hand, cupping her heel with the other. "He's going to have to go to jail, and if the prison thinks he's nuts, they can handle him within the system, there are provisions in place for that."

"Perfectly reasonable."

"It's one reason I still get pissed about Kent State - not one of those soldiers, not one authority figure, no one was held accountable for what was stolen, for all those lives shattered in thirteen seconds of senseless behavior. And it was more than the dead and wounded and their families, it - and I don't think this word is too strong, at least for describing the feeling at the time - shattered a generation. And while McGwire was certainly a victim of that event, he let it eat him alive. There are enough public health services, or the VA even, that he could have gotten help for his mental health issues. People cope with trauma and depression every day and don't kill some kid for being an ass. I think McGwire did in reverse what was done to him - one perception of the events at Kent State was that the soldiers thought the students were being assholes, and they got fed up, they got pissed, and they took that anger and frustration out by firing on the students. McGwire did exactly that to Watkins, except he used a more personal weapon, some of those Guardsmen get to live with the idea that maybe their bullets didn't hit anyone. McGwire will always know his knife hit its mark. And just as the Guardsmen watched as students bled and died, McGwire did the same. So yes, he's accountable. He knew what he did was wrong, and he didn't care."

She drew her legs back and shifted to sit next to him. "How long have you been up thinking? I think you've drawn the perfect parallel, it will wipe out his defense with a jury."

"Maybe." He draped his arm over her shoulders. "I don't think we'll ever see the inside of a courtroom on this one, Fraser will deal him out."

"Think so?"

He nodded. "I think, in a sense, he's a legacy for David, from his father, who worked so hard for the counter-culture, and McGwire is one of the last remnants of that whole thing, though I doubt he'd want to be identified with it, I think he's probably inherently conservative, but." He sighed. "For David to take his case was a way of identifying with his father, of validating his father's legacy by standing up for one of the victims of KSU. Unfortunately, he got an unsympathetic one overall, but that's another tangent."

"So what's your offer? Man one?"

"Yeah. Maxed out."

She rubbed his thigh, reaching under his robe, kneading his sweatpants with the delicate hand that loosened muscles he didn't realize were tense until she touched them. "So that takes care of Mr. McGwire, what about Mr. McCoy?"

"Mr. McCoy realizes he, too, is a product of his times, made his choices in good faith, is what he is, and has been rewarded by Zeus with the gift of Claire Kincaid." He kissed her. "And to get to this point, to holding you in my arms, it's all been worth it. I am going to marry you, Claire, sooner or later." He grinned. "You're not getting away. Life would be so empty without you."

"You may not want me in a couple of years. I may go completely Left and work for Legal Aid or the ACLU."

"Fine." He kissed her again. "Just as long as you don't leave me."

"Not a chance. We don't know what the future holds, but I can't imagine either of us changing so much that we'd want to split."

He slid her into his lap. "Me, either. Now, about today - I have a couple of suggestions."

END


End file.
